Dracula Review – Besson’s Love-Struck Reimagining of the Gothic Classic is Outlandish but Entertaining

Maybe there is no great enthusiasm for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for stylish excess. Still, it has to be said: his richly designed vampire romance has ambition and panache – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer compared with the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, like a particular moment that appears to show a land border between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz as a Witty Yet Careworn Vampire-Hunting Priest

Christoph Waltz plays a clever but beleaguered vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who ends up in Paris in 1889 to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the evil Count Dracula, played by the seasoned horror actor Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone similar to Carell’s Gru character in the Despicable Me films. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.

The Story: A Saga of Heartbreak

Here’s the premise: Dracula has wandered endlessly the globe in torment for hundreds of years since he became undead, a punishment for his irreligious grief after the passing of his beloved Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has sought relentlessly for a lady who might be the rebirth of his lost love. By cruel fate, the lucky lady is revealed as Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the modest betrothed of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to discuss his land assets and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

Besson’s Handling and Humorous Style

Besson organizes Dracula’s middle-section history of global roaming in various outrageous costumes with a sure hand, and he doesn’t shy away from giving us some comedy moments with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to end his own life post-Elisabeta’s demise, along with comical sequences that follow Dracula applies to himself in a certain perfume in 18th-century Florence, which causes him to be irresistible to women. Ridiculous and watchable.

Dracula can be streamed online from 1 December and on DVD and Blu-ray from December 22nd. It plays in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.